A simple and successful design is developed which has the objective to put together a cost effective model, scaled down both in size and energy required for an average residential home driven through Solar Panels. It also deals with the autonomous illumination of streets of a model colony through solar panels to meet the requirements and attain the maximum efficiency of the available energy. The Photovoltaic system along with an inverter and intensity control circuit counts for the basic design. The effort deals with the efficient, cost effective and needful implementation of Photovoltaic systems which would be useful primarily in rural and remote parts of India for both social and economic development of the people.

1. Rupak Bhattacharyya et al. (Eds) : ACER 2013,
pp. 387–392, 2013. © CS & IT-CSCP 2013 DOI : 10.5121/csit.2013.3236
EFFICIENT AND COST EFFECTIVE MODEL
FOR AN ECO-FRIENDLY SOLAR COLONY
Abhijit Kundu1
, Soumyajit Nath2
, Saheli Nag3
, Saikat Bhattacharyya4
,
Bap Sadhukhan5
, M. Ray Kanjilal6
1
Department of ECE, Abacus Institute of Engineering and Management.
abhijituday@yahoo.co.in
2,3,4,5
Department of ECE., Narula Institute of Technology
{soumyajit08nath, sahelinag, saikat.bhatt143,
bapis.khan}@gmail.com
6
Department of ECE (MIETE, MISTE and MIEEE), Narula Institute of
Technology
mr.kanjilal@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
A simple and successful design is developed which has the objective to put together a cost
effective model, scaled down both in size and energy required for an average residential home
driven through Solar Panels. It also deals with the autonomous illumination of streets of a
model colony through solar panels to meet the requirements and attain the maximum efficiency
of the available energy. The Photovoltaic system along with an inverter and intensity control
circuit counts for the basic design. The effort deals with the efficient, cost effective and needful
implementation of Photovoltaic systems which would be useful primarily in rural and remote
parts of India for both social and economic development of the people.
KEYWORDS
Solar cell, intensity control circuit, compact fluorescent lamps, inverter transformer, LDR, eco-
friendly, economic.
1. INTRODUCTION
Development of electricity infrastructure is one of the main hurdles in the development of rural
society. India's grid system is considerably under-developed, with major sections of its populace
still surviving off-grid. As of 2004 there are about 80,000 un-electrified villages in the country. Of
these villages 18,000 could not be electrified through extension of the conventional grid [1].
Keeping in mind the vast and diversified contour of a country, it is hard to install grids in the
remote areas such as forests, deserts and hilly regions. Again manual control of the street lamps in
such areas is an impossible task. Autonomously operated solar powered CFL lamps through
intensity control circuits are the best possible way to provide electricity in these areas which will be
able to bring out a social, economical and most importantly eco-friendly development in the
society.

2. 388 Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT)
2. ANALYSIS
In India the theoretical solar power reception on its land area alone is about 5 Peta Watt-hours per
year (PWh/yr) for 300 clear, sunny days in a year. The daily average solar energy incident over
India varies from 4 to 7 kWh/m2
with about 1500–2000 sunshine hours per year (depending upon
location), which is far more than current total energy consumption [1].
A model colony and a prototype house had been designed based on solar energy to implement the
circuitry showing its real life application. Figure 1 shows the entire block diagram and it has been
divided into two parts - the prototype house in which a Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) has
been illuminated by the photo generated energy and on the other hand a model colony which
constitutes of such solar houses and street lamps powered by solar panels operated through
autonomous intensity controlled switching circuit.
A solar panel of 10 watts [2, 3, 5] is used as the primary source of power and also to simulate the
entire experiment. The prototype house installs the solar panel which drives a regulation circuit
shown in figure 2. Voltage regulators in various configurations are used in this block to regulate
the photo generated power and remove backflow [4, 5]. This regulated power is used to charge
various kinds of storage elements such as Lead-acid, Nickel-Cadmium and Lithium-ion batteries
to be used for different household purposes [4]. A Lead-acid battery (12 Volts and 7 Amperes) is
used to deliver power to a Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) rated at 9 watts in the house.

3. Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT) 389
In addition to the rural areas, this project can also be implemented in the urban areas with an aim
to reduce pollution. Since there is an abundance of AC operated equipment in urban areas, an
inverter circuit is used to illuminate the CFL. The inverter circuit consists of miniature high
frequency inverter transformer that has a 25mm x 20mm x 5mm ferrite core, 30 turns of primary,
15 turns of feedback, and 250 turns of secondary all concentric, wound on plastic frame then
wrapped with a 'yellow' adhesive tape as shown in figure 3.This is a single transistor oscillator
circuit. Current passed through primary winding inducts a magnetic field to the core and the core
gives the energy back to the feedback winding with a delay determined by the core material and
windings. The system then oscillates continuously on a frequency depending on this timing [3, 4,
5, 6].
As discussed earlier, autonomously operated solar powered CFLs along with intensity control
circuits would be the best possible way to provide as well as conserve electricity in the remote and
desolate areas. The street lamps consist of a circuit that incorporates a Light Dependent Resistor
(LDR) and controls a relay through a transistor to switch on CFLs according to the intensity of the
available sunlight. This circuit, as already stated, brings enormous help in areas where it is not
possible to physically operate street lamps [5].

4. 390 Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT)
The circuit has a simple transistor switch shown in figure 4 with the base of the transistor
connected to a voltage divider. The voltage divider has two resistors. The first is the
220KΩ potentiometer. The second resistor is the LDR. As light falls on the surface of the
LDR, the LDR changes it's resistance. Higher the intensity of available light, leads to less
the resistance of LDR and in turn of which the voltage drop across it becomes less. The
less the light, the more the resistance and thus the voltage drop across it increases. As the
voltage drop increases, so does the VB of the CL100 transistor and therefore the ICE
increases accordingly, until the time that the current is enough to actuate the relay.
The amount of light needed to actuate the relay can be changed by changing the 220K
potentiometer. Basically, any change to the potentiometer will have an effect on the
voltage drop of the LDR, i.e. its sensitivity is adjustable depending on the available light
intensity. Practical applications are shown in figure 5
3. RESULTS
In the present work the practical circuits have been developed on Veroboard and also successfully
simulated and the results are tabulated below.
.

5. Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT) 391
Table1. Regulator Blocks
PORT NAMES
DESIRED
OUTPUT
PRACTICAL
OUTPUT
BATTERY
CONNECTED
PORT A 12 Volts 11.79 Volts Lead-Acid
PORT B 5 Volts 4.99 Volts Lithium-ion
PORT C 12 V, 0.6 Amps 12 V, 0.6 Amps Nickel-Cadmium
Table2. Inverter block
PARAMETERS USED DESIRED OUTPUT PRACTICAL OUTPUT
OUTPUT WAVEFORMSinusoidal Modified Sine Wave
VOLTAGE 220 V ≈ 150 V
POWER 40 Watts More than 40 Watts
FREQUENCY High Frequency High Frequency
Table3. AUTONOMOUS INTENSITY CONTROL SWITCH
TIME RESISTANCE
OF LDR
STATUS
OF RELAY
STATUS OF
YELLOW LED
STATUS OF
RED LED
DAY A few Ohms Depending
on intensity of light
Turned Off Off On
NIGHT In range of mega Ohms Turned On On On
Figure 6 shows the modified waveforms of the inverter block.

6. 392 Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT)
4. CONCLUSION
The concept of solar powered prototype house along with the intensity controlled switching
circuit when implemented in the long run on practical fields to manage rural and urban
development would definitely be a big leap towards reducing Global Warming and attaining a
Green Country stature.
REFERENCES
[1] Muneer T, Asif M, Munawwar S: ‘Sustainable production of solar electricity with particular reference
to the Indian economy’, RENEWABLE & SUSTAINABLE ENERGY REVIEWS, pp: 444-473, OCT
2005.
[2] BEN G. STREETMAN: ‘Solid State Electronics Devices’, Prentice Hall of India Pvt. Ltd., 4th
Edition, pp. 215–217, 677.
[3] J. MILLMAN, C. HALKIAS: ‘Integrated Electronics: Analog and Digital Circuits and Systems’,
1991, Tata McGraw Hill Publishing Company Ltd., pp. 81-83, 483-496, 698-699.
[4] ROBERT L. BOYLESTAD and LOUIS NASHELSKY: ‘Electronic Devices and Circuit Theory’, 9th
Edition, Pearson Education Prentice Hall, pp. 232–235.
[5] J.B. GUPTA: ‘Electronic Devices and Circuits’, 3rd Edition, S.K. Kataria & Sons. , pp. 354-357, 394-
398, 418-436, 472-480, 686-699.
[6] D. CHATTOPADHYAY, P.C. RAKSHIT, B. SAHA, N.N. PURKAIT: ‘Foundations of Electronics’,
2nd Edition, New Age International (P) Ltd. , pp. 274-277, 309-333.
AUTHORS
ABHIJIT KUNDU received the B.Tech & M.tech degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering
from the University of W.B.U.T, Kolkata, West Bengal, in 2007 &2010 respectively. Currently, He is an
Assistant Professor of Electronics and Communication Engineering of Abacus Institute of Engineering &
Management, West Bengal, India. His teaching and research areas include Microwave Engineering, Electro
Magnetic Theory, Solid State Devices. He has few paper on PIN diode and MESFET. Abhijit Kundu
(Assistant Professor) may be reached at abhijituday@yahoo.co.in
DR. MAITREYI RAY KANJILAL is at present Professor and Head in department of Electronics and
Communication Engineering at Narula Institute of Technology, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. She has a
wide teaching experience since 1998 in the colleges under C.U, Asansol engineering College, Narula
Institute of Technology. She was also Head of the Department ECE and EIE departments at Techno India
College of Technology, Kolkata, India. She has received the Ph.D from The University of Calcutta in the
Year 2000. She is associated with different universities for various academic activities and also a life
member of IETE, ISTE and Professional member of IEEE (USA), IEEE-ED society (USA), IEEE-MTTs
(USA). Her field of interest in research is low and high frequency semiconductor devices and their
applications, microelectronics and VLSI. Dr Ray Kanjilal is also the author of three books namely – Basic
Electrical and Electronic Engineering- Vol - 1 (Kolkata, West Bengal, JB Book and Learning, 2010), Basic
Electrical and Electronic Engineering- Vol - 2 (Kolkata, West Bengal, JB Book and Learning, 2011) and
Analog Electronic Circuits (Kolkata, West Bengal, JB Book and Learning, 2012) and she has also reviewed
books published by Pearson-Prentice Hall and Tata Mc Hill. Dr. Maitreyi Ray Kanjilal may be reached at
mr.kanjilal@gmail.com.
SOUMYAJIT NATH, SAHELI NAG, SAIKAT BHATTACHARYYA, BAP SADHUKHAN are
Student of ECE Dept., Narula Institute of Technology of 2012 batch.